A SENIOR shopper has fumed about their checkout process at a prominent retail chain, claiming they’ll strictly buy merchandise online from now on due to a receipt check....For More CONTINUE THE FULL READING▶▶
While getting her groceries at a Fred Meyer location in Portland, Oregon, an 86-year-old woman named Bonnie claimed she was stopped on suspicion of theft by employees for a receipt check.
“I’m 86 years old and walk with a cane. The idea that I could get away with shoplifting anything is rather ludicrous,” the shopper wrote in a message to local NBC affiliate KGW.
“I did, of course, comply, but it’s a very uncomfortable feeling that someone would think I’m a thief.”
Bonnie was seemingly so baffled and offended by the receipt check that she said she’d be sticking to online ordering and pick-up.
“I’m going back to ordering online and picking up all my groceries,” she wrote to the outlet.
“Here’s hoping they don’t decide to frisk me before loading groceries into my car.”
Fred Meyer is now one of several retailers around the United States that have implemented receipt checks as an anti-theft measure.
Although many customers have specifically called out Walmart over its receipt checks over the past year and into 2024.
Walmart implemented receipt checks at several locations in the country before customers exit the store.
Employees await customers from cashiered and self-checkout lanes to verify purchases and prevent inventory shrink.
Shrink refers to losses incurred by retailers due to clerical errors, damaged, lost, miss-scanned, or stolen goods, per Corporate Finance Institute.
The receipt checks have divided customers at Walmart, with some having no qualms with stopping to have their purchases verified and others standing vehemently against it.
‘WALK ON BY’
As The U.S. Sun previously reported, lawyers and other officials, like Texas-based Constable Wayne Thompson, have also stressed that Walmart customers are not legally obligated to stop for receipt checks.
“There is no law (penal code) that allows a store to demand you show your receipt,” Thompson said while speaking with local CBS affiliate KHOU.
“You can walk on by if you wish.”
Even so, in Texas, similar to several other states, there is a law in place called Shopkeeper’s Privilege, which allows retailers like Walmart to detain a suspected shoplifter if they first establish probable cause.
Refusing to show a receipt alone isn’t enough for probable cause, but the failure to adhere to the receipt check, along with other factors like odd behavior, could be combined as enough to qualify.
That’s why some legal experts, like Michigan-based attorney Steve Lehto, argued that it’s better that shoppers at all retailers, including Walmart, adhere to a receipt check to avoid any problems.
Lehto recommended that those who disagree with the policy refuse to shop at stores that perform receipt checks rather than purchasing items and then refuse to show the slip out of spite.
That still doesn’t stop many Walmart shoppers from outright refusing staff requests to look at their receipts.
Others try to find ways to get around the anti-theft measure or ensure that employees aren’t discriminatory in their receipt-checking process.
CHECKING THE CHECKERS
TikToker Lette (@Lol_Letta) recently posted a video on the social media platform recounting a trip to Walmart where she claimed she was stopped.
Letta told viewers that she informed the staff member that they should then check other shoppers’ receipts out of fairness.
“He looks at it, and then he gives it back to me, and I tell him, ‘Well, hey now, make sure you look at everyone else’s, not just mine, okay?’” the customer recalled.
“‘Cause I know a lot of more people is coming through and you gonna have to look at everybody, that’s your job. Don’t just look at mine, look at everybody else’s.’”
Another shopper said they tried to cheat the system through self-checkout after requesting that their receipt be texted to them instead of printed.
Walmart customer Ebie (@ebbieho) posted a clip on TikTok alongside her partner as they attempted to see if an employee would stop them if they had no receipt on the way out the door.
“I’m gonna buy something on purpose and not ask for a receipt,” she explained to viewers.
They obtained the text receipt and walked by, with no employee stopping them to check they’d paid for the items.
“We walked right out and they didn’t care and we said to text the receipt because we wanted to say ‘we didn’t get one sorry and you can’t look in our phone,’” Ebie said.
For more related content, check out The U.S. Sun’s coverage of another Walmart shopper’s bold move to avoid showing a receipt.
The U.S. Sun also has the story of a customer who avoided a receipt check in a Walmart parking lot as they told staff, “that’s my private property.”
